Baton Rouge flooding and the strength of food banks

August 17, 2016

by Dan Michel

The news that is coming out of Louisiana is devastating. Heavy rainfall has created historic flooding in the region with no immediate relief in sight. Thousands of people have been affected and are displaced from their homes. The recovery effort will be huge in the coming months.

This also affects the every-day disaster that is hunger in America. The Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank is not immune to nature with four feet of water seeping into the warehouse making thousands of pounds of food inedible. The clean-up effort will be massive to get their operations back to normal as well as the anticipated increase need to serve new requests for food assistance from disaster victims.

Fortunately, the Feeding America nationwide network of food banks is uniquely poised to help in situations like this. Many food banks have product at the ready -- particularly for when disaster strikes. Water, cleaning supplies and ready-to-eat meals are staged to be sent to disaster areas from all across the country. We are working to mobilize this product and get it to the flooded areas in Louisiana.

We are proud to have provided services to many disaster areas throughout the years and will be there for our neighbors in Louisiana. We will also continue our normal work of providing 4 billion meals to people in need.